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INDIAN AGRICULTURE IN SOUTHERN WISCONSIN 



By BENJAMIN HORACE HIBBARD, Ph. D. 



[From Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1904] 




MADISON 
Published by the Society 

1905 



Gift 
The Society 

n mm 



Indian Agriculture in Southern 
Wisconsin 



By Benjamin Horace Hibbard, Ph. D. 1 

Early writers and travellers were lamentably negligent in 
recording many phases of Indian life which it would be desir- 
able to know, especially those related to the economic activities 
of these primitive people. An undue amount of "historical 
divination" is required in arriving at satisfactory or even plaus- 
ible conclusions concerning some of these matters. The real 
influence which aboriginal agriculture exercised upon the ex- 
ploration, settlement, and development of the Western lands, is 
w'ell worth our study. The new comer often received therefrom 
suggestions as to what crops would most likely flourish on the 
various soils and in the different rain-belts; not to mention the 
direct effect upon lines of supplies bought or stolen from the 
retreating tribes — these are interesting questions, but we must 
not expect much specific information concerning them. The 
methods of hunting and fighting ; of making weapons, utensils,, 
and implements ; of dancing, singing, wooing, are all told by 
early chroniclers with painstaking minuteness and detail, but 
the products of the soil are noticed by them only in paren- 
thetical phrases or general observations. There is hardly a 
line yet found, relating to the agricultural tools used, or the 

i Professor of economics in Iowa state college. 

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ort of ground chosen for fields — absolutely nothing as to yield, 
,nd next to nothing concerning the importance of these crops 
o the Indians themselves. 

For a long time the Sauk and Foxes had their principal 
pillages near 1 the Wisconsin River, at the east end of Sauk 
Prairie, just opposite the northwest corner of Dane County. 
These Indians were somewhat above the average of the tribes 
»f this region in civilization; they lived in more compact and 
larger settlements, hence naturally depended more on their corn- 
ields than did their more nomadic neighbors to the west. 
Their corn was planted along the edge of the woods which 
fringe the Wisconsin, and this belt is choice cornrland today. 
Some small parts of it have been kept in grass from the time 
>f the earlier white settlement, and in those places old Indian 
sorn-hills may still be seen, the sod holding them in shape. 
Che Indian cultivated the growing corn by hoeing toward the 
] ill j and as this became the mellowest spot, the corn: w'asi planted 
jach succeeding year in the same little mound, which grew 
o be a foot or more in height. 

"There was a large settlement of Sauk at the lower end of 
3la,uk Prairie. I have often examined the remains of their 
illage there, and should suppose they raised corn in one lot 
of at least four hundred acres *■ * * the four hundred 
icres is covered with well formed, regular corn-hills." 1 Just 
what this writer means by "regular" is not quite clear — prob- 
ably that the hills were of uniform size, and approximately 
he same distance apart, for it does not appear that the Indiana 
often planted corn in, rows, there being, with their mode of 
culture, very little occasion for such methods. 1 ' The Indians 
of northern Michigan at the present day generally care for their 
;orn much as did their ancestors of a century ago ; and the few! 



1 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society Transactions,, i, p. 125. 

2 "At every step they dig a round hole in which they sow nine or 
;en grains of maize which they have first carefully selected and 
;oaked for some days in water." — Carr, Indian Mounds of the Missis- 
sippi Valley, p. 15. 

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Early Indian Agriculture 



who attempt its cultivation with a horse cultivator 1 do not take 
the precaution to plant the corn in rows, but run here and 
there wherever there happens to be sufficient room between the 
hills. 

Whether or not the Wisconsin Indians, like those of Ohio 
or New England, girdled trees so as to rid the land of them, 
and leave it in a suitable condition for cultivation by their 
rude and ineffective tools, is not stated; but the probability 
is that little of such work was necessary. 1 The field at Sauk 
Prairie just mentioned, lay along the border of the woodland ; 
and as the prairie was burned off nearly every year, it is 
reasonable to suppose that the fire crept into- the woods, for a 
greater or less distance, killing the trees and leaving a consid- 
erable belt neither distinctively prairie nor woods. Naturally 
this would become overgrown with weeds and saplings, which 
could be much more easily eradicated than the heavy growth of 
trees or grass. The prairie sod was altogether too tough to 
be subdued by the Indians, and nowhere do we find them' tilling 
any considerable area of genuine prairie soil. 

There are one or two direct references! to' Indian fields 
within Dane County. While stationed at Tort Crawford, 
Jefferson Davis visited this section and left in his journal some 
remarks pertinent to our subject: "While on detached service 
in the summer of 1829, I think I encamped one night about 
the site of Madison. The nearest Indian village was on the 
opposite side of the lake. * * * The Indians subsisted 
largely on Indian corn and wild rice." 2 Probably he referred 
to the place now known as Winnequah, on the eastern shore 
of Lake Monona, where a few Indian corn-hills are still dis- 
cernable. The nature of the land here at the time of the 



1 "In the fall of 1814 the late Col. Dickson was stopped here [Lake 
Winnebago] by the ice and compelled to remain during the Winter. 
* * * He cleared the land, now cultivated by the Indians." — Jour- 
nal of Mrs. James D. Doty, in Wis. Hist. Colls., x, p. 114. 

2 Wis. Hist. Colls., x, p. 75. 



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Wisconsin Historical Society 



Indian occupancy, cannot now be estimated with the same 
accuracy as in the case of the Sauk district. It ia not on the 
edge of a prairie : hut from the condition of the present woods 
about Wiimequah, and the sandy nature of the soil, it is alto- 
gether likely that there were sufficient open spots for all the 
corn-fields which the small villages of Indians would be likely 
to cultivate. 

Capt. -Jonathan Carver, who made a trip through the north- 
west in 1766. in speaking of the Winnebago Indians remarks: 
"The land adjacent to the lake [Winnebago] is very fertile, 
abounding with grapes, plums, and other fruits, which grow 
spontaneously. The Winnebagoes raise on it a great quan- 
tity of Indian corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, and watermel- 
ons, with some tobacco. 771 Carver also gives an interesting de- 
scription of the kind of corn grown by the Indians. We should 
infer from what little he says that it is very similar, although 
not identical, with the corn raised by the Xew England Indians 
in the seventeenth century: "One spike generally consists of 
about six hundred grains which are placed closely together in 
rows to the number of eight or ten, and sometimes twelve." 2 
He does not tell us whether or not it is dented; but since he 
finds it maturing as far north as Lake Winnebago, and espec- 
ially as the ears are long and slender, it is safe to infer that 
it was the hard flint variety known as "Yankee corn." In 
case the four hundred acres near Sauk Prairie produced such 
remarkably large ears — averaging, we should judge, at least a 
foot in length, the aggregate yield must have been very great. 
Reasoning from this, it is easy to believe the various reports 
of discoveries of fifty thousand bushels of corn in cache by 
armies in the Ohio Valley, and to the southward. However, 
the element of uncertainty is by no means a negligible quantity, 
and the reader must draw his own conclusions as to the prob- 
able amount of farm produce raised by the Wisconsin Indian.. 

* Travels in 2>'orth America, p. 37. 
2 Ibid., p. 521. 



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Early Indian Agriculture 



For the most part, the practices and methods of these Indians 
resembled those of the tribes farther east. The Sauk and 
Foxes were scattered up and down the Wisconsin and Fox 
rivers; wherever found, they depended for a living, in part, 
on the cultivated product of the soil. 1 In raising a crop of 
corn, or other field products, the Indians had many difficulties 
with which to contend, even more perplexing than those con- 
nected with subduing the native soil. Perhaps the depreda- 
tions of blackbirds and crows were the worst; for as soon as 
other food began to fail them in the fall, they pounced upon 
the corn, usually when it was about in the milk or "roasting 
ear," and wrought sad havoc. The Indians were always 
inordinately fond of the tender, greeni corn, and this fact, 
together with the danger of loss by birds or frost from leav- 
ing it out until maturity, induced them to gather it early. 
They were familiar with the fact that corn may be cured while 
yet in the green state, and still be desirable food; this fact, 
as well as the method of storing, appears in the following quo- 
tation: 2 "I observed several women with bags on their heads 
and shoulders, appearing heavily laden, bent down and not 
raising their faces from the path they were upon. I never 
saw individuals contend more with a load that almost mastered 
them, than did some of these females. Following them a short 
distance to a place where they stopped, I found they were 
making a cache) of the ripe maize of the season. A sort of 
cave had been hollowed out in the side of the hill, about eight 
feet in diameter at the bottom, and not more tfhan two or three 
at the top. To this cache the women were bringing the corn, 
a distance of about three miles, and some very young girls 
were in the cave storing it away. * * * The ears of 
maize are gathered and cured whilst the corn is in the milk, 
and the bags when filled with it are laid in the cave upon layers 
of dry grass, one layer above another. "When the cave is full, 

iSee Coues, Pike's Expeditions (N. Y., 1895), pp. 294-303; also brief 
mention in the Reedsburg Free Press, July 23, 1874. 

2 G. W. Featherstonhaugh, Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor, p. 350. 

11 [ 149 ] 



Wisconsin Historical Society 



straw is put in and covered over with dry earth. They cure 
the corn in the milk, because the blackbirds are numerous 
enough to devour it all if it were left to ripen in the field." 1 
From this it is seen that the agricultural methods of Wis- 
consin Indians were not different from those farther east 
and south — the women do the work ; the corn is gathered before 
fully ripe, and put in caches for safe keeping. 

It would be hazardous to attempt any estimate of the quantity 
of corn raised, even by any one tribe. The Sauk and Foxes 
appear to have depended more on products of the soil than 
did their neighbors. The four hundred acres raised near 
where Sauk City now stands, is good evidence of a total pro- 
duct of no slight proportions, for these Indians had many 
other villages scattered along the line of the Fox and Wis- 
consin rivers. Speaking of these tribes as a whole, Worden 
remarks : "The Sacs and Foxes raise corn, beans and melons, 
and derive a great part of their subsistence from agriculture 
and gardening." 2 

Indian improvidence is usually spoken of as though the red 
man had no regard whatever for the morrow; but Pike credits 
the Osage with the virtue of rigid economy in saving their 
corn and beans for seasons when the chase is likely to fail in 
supplying the larder. 3 The same author mentions the dry- 
ing of pumpkins, for winter use, by the Indians of the plains. 
In the same strain Father Allouez, who visited the Western 
Indians in the early part of 1670, says of the Outagami: 
''These savages * * * are settled in an excellent country, 
— the soil, which is black there, yielding them Indian corn in 
abundance. They live by hunting during the winter return- 
ing to their cabins towards its close, and living there on Indian 

i In Chas. "W. Burkett, History of Ohio Agriculture (Concord, 1900), 
the point is made that the Indians unconsciously practiced a careful 
system of selection hy taking the best and earliest corn each year for 
seed. This seems reasonable, but Professor Burkett does not give his 
authority for the statement. 

sWorden, United States, ii, p. 539. 

s Coues, Pike's Expeditions, p. 532. 

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Early Indian Agriculture 



corn that they had hidden away the previous Autumn:; they 
season it with fish." 1 Again, in speaking of the Ouimamis, 
[Miami], he mentions the fact that on the first of May they 
still had corn which they offered him to eat; and of the Pota- 
watomi, that their land is "very good for Indian ,corn ? of 
which they plant fields, and to which they very willingly 
retire to avoid the famines that are too common in these quar- 
ters." These famines were usually the result of drouth 
which, by drying up the forage plants, drove the big (game 
away to other sections, 2 leaving the poor Indians dependent 
on fish and the grain in stock — the latter being, unhappily, 
seldom or never found in quantities sufficient to tide over a. 
famine of any consequence. 3 

A traveller in 1669 makes this record on his visit to Greer 
Bay: "I found here only one village of different nations — 
Ousaki, Pouteouatami, Outagami, Orenibigoutz (i. e. Ouind 
pegouk) — about six hundred souls. * * * All thesf 
Nations have their fields of Indian corn, squashes, beans, ano 
tobacco." 4 

In 1793, Eobert Dickson wrote of the Indians near Port 
age: "At the Falls of the Pox Kiver there is a portage of 
three-quarters of a mile. The Indians here raise Indian corn, 
squash, potatoes, melons, and cucumbers in great abundance, 
and good tobacco. On the low lands by the river great quae 
tities of wild oats [rice] grow." 5 

As ai rule the Indian depended on corn and beans to suppoi 
him during his long excursions, whether in peace or war. L 
the account of the capture of the Hall girls, which occurre 



iThwaites, Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1896-1901), liv, p. 223. 

2 Wis. Hist. Colls., xii, p. 139. 

3 Many incidental references to the sorry plight of the Wisconsi 
Indians in times when game was scarce may he found in the Wi 
Hist. Colls., especially in the Grignon and Dickson papers, xi, pp. 271 
315. 

* Jesuit Relations, liv, pp. 205, 207. 
s Wis. Hist. Colls., xii, pp. 134, 135. 



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Wisconsin Historical Society 



>out May, 1832, there is a good side-light on the Indian 
mmissariat: "When we halted, ithe Indians having scalded 
me beans, and roasted some acorns, desired we should eat. 

* * On our arrival several sqnaws came to our assist- 
ive * * * prepared a place for us to sit down, and pre- 
•nted us some parched corn, some meal, and maple sugar, 
rixed, and desired us to eat. * * * In the evening we 
ere presented with a supper consisting of coffee, fried cakes, 
>iled corn, and fried vension, with fried leeks. * * * 
7hen our flour was exhausted we had coffee, meat, and pounded 
[>rn made into soup." 1 Later, it is mentioned that the Indi- 
ns carried pork and potatoes while on the march. The pork 
s well as the coffee was, of course, obtained from the whites, 
but the potatoes, so-called, were probably wild artichokes 
hich Lapham found in use as food among the Indians in 
"hat is now Brown County. In 1844 he found them using 
a very good kind of potato * * * the mode of preserv- 
Qg which was entirely new to us. The potatoes, which are 
f an oblong shape, and not longer than a man's thumb are 
partially boiled, and carefully peeled while hot, without 
creaking the pulp, and strung like so many beads upon a twine 
»r tough thread of bark and then hung in festoons on the 
■idge pole of the wigwam, over the smoke of the fire, where 
hey became thoroughly dry. This process renders the pota- 
;oes fit for transportation and use during the severest frosts 
vvithout injury. The squaws take great interest in prepar- 
ing this article of food which is about the only vegetable they 
cultivate. 772 However, the Indians around Green Bay were 
by no means restricted to one agricultural product, although 
contact with the white men tended to make them more and 
more dependent, since they found it easier to barter furs for 
"ood than to raise grain. 

1 Smith, Wisconsin, iii, pp. 189-195. 

2 Lapham, Wisconsin, p. 116. Although Lapham was a scientist lie 
.oes not venture to give the botanical name of this plant, which was 
vidently a puzzle to him. 

[152] 



Early Indian Agriculture 



From the above citations, it appears that the cultivated field 
of the Indians occupied a diagonal line across the state, foJ 
lowing the courses of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers and Greep 
Bay ; and that the Sauk, Foxes, and Winnebago were the mo£ ' 
inclined, in the struggle for existence, to make use of their 
agricultural knowledge and opportunies. It may also be 
shown that there were some important cultivated areas along th » 
Mississippi and Bock rivers, and some insignificant patches nea.: 4 
Lake Michigan. The settlement of Black Hawk's follower; 
on the lower part of the Bock, on the point between that riv( 
and the Mississippi is of interest, and these were Wisconsin. 
Indians, who had resumed their agricultural labors in a ne- ; 
home. 

Something of the skill of these people in choosing land c, 
which ,to> grow corn, also an idea of the quantity grown, are 
furnished by Black Hawk in his Autobiography: "In the 
front a prairie extended to the Mississippi, and in our rear 
a continued bluff gently ascended from the prairie. * * * 
On the side of this bluff we had our corn fields, extending; 
about two miles up parallel with the larger river, where they 
adjoined those of the Foxes, whose village was on the san , : 
stream opposite the lower end of Bock Island and three miles 
distant from ours. We had eight hundred acres in cultiv 
lion, including what we had on the islands in Bock Bive 
The land around our village which remained unbroken, w . 
covered with blue-grass which furnished excellent pasture for 
our horses. * * * The land being very fertile nev 
failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, ana 
squashes.'* 1 

Black Hawk then goes on to state that, owing to encroac* 
ments of the white settlers, his people had hard work to fir : 
sufficient land on which to plant corn, and gives a sorrowf J 
account of the distress caused by the confiscation of their cro; 



i Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk (S 
Louis, 1882), pp. 57, 58. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 



by the whites. Black Hawk does not give any estimate of 
the area cultivated by the Foxes, but Col. John Shaw, in 
speaking of both settlements, estimates the fields at five thou- 
sand acres. 1 This is probably an exaggeration, but it serves 
its purpose in giving some notion of the importance of agri- 
cultural industry to the Indians themselves, and surely it was 
not inconsiderable. Anyone wishing to estimate the amount 
of these products by the various tribes, will find some data in 
the Emigrant's and Traveller's Guide, where a fairly good esti- 
mate of the numbers of the several Indian tribes in 1834 
appears. 2 

A great many more references could be given, emphasizing 
the reliance of the red man on his rude husbandry; but per- 
iaps enough has already been said to make it plain that some- 
thing is due him for taking the initial step in the develop- 
ment of the great grain regions of the upper Mississippi valley. 
Neither are we left wholly to deduce our conclusions from 
circumstantial evidence. The early military expeditions of the 
West and Northwest were for the most part dependent on 
supplies obtained from the Indians. 3 The accounts of the 
Lewis and Clark expedition tell of the dependence of the party 
m provisions furnished by the Indians, and even so far north 
as the ]\Iandan village they traded for Indian corn. 4 At 
Mackinac Island, a point hardly within the present corn belt, 

iWis. Hist. Colls., x, p. 220. 

2 Tanner, Vieiv of the Valley of the Mississippi or the Emigrant's 
md Traveller's Guide to the West (Philadelphia, 1834). 

s In a letter to Brehm, Governor Sinclair speaks of sending a sloop 
hrough the lake region in the fall of 1779 to collect all the grain and 
• )ther provisions available, to be used in the campaign against St. Louis 
;he follovv r ing spring. In others of the Haldimand papers are direct 
statements to the effect that the provisions for the St. Louis expedition 
were to be gathered principally from the Indians along "Wisconsin River, 
where corn was said to be abundant, and as a matter of fact this plan 
apears to have been carried out. — Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, pp. 141-184. 

^Thwaites, Original Journal of the Lewis and ClarJc Expedition; 
Mass's Journal, p. 99. 

[ 154 ] 



Early Indian Agriculture 



the Indians raised a sufficient quantity of that cereal to attract 
the attention of the British garrison as well as of various; 
travellers. As early as 1766 Jonathan 'Carver saw 1 the import- 
ance of the agricultural products of the "Wisconsin Indians 
and after enumerating the crops grown, by the "SauMes* 
before mentioned, speaks thus of the Sauk village: "This 
place is esteemed the best market for traders to furnish them 
selves with provisions, of any within eight hundred miles of 
it," 1 

Thus it is seen that the Indians, on their own account 
furnished provisions for their own war parties; for the Eng- 
lish forays against Americans and Spanish; for explorers like 
Marquette, Carver, and Lewis and Clark, and the long list 
of later adventurers who came to spy out the land and event- 
ually to expel the tribesmen from their fields. The trader*, 
who ranged the woods and rivers for a century before civiliza 
tion ruined their traffic, depended in a large measure on the 
meagre stores of Indian corn and beans; while even the troops I 
which finally hunted the natives from their homes, fillec 
their camp kettles either from the caches or the corn fields o: 
the fugitives. iSTor was this all. The earliest settlers seizec 
upon the little cultivated plots as the most desirable ground ; 
for their own first plantings, and utilized the native-growr 
seed, since it was known to be adapted to the soil and climate 
It is interesting to [note that the two crops which the Indian 
prized most highly, corn and tobacco, are at present two of 
the foremost products of Wisconsin. 2 

1 Carver, Travels, p. 47. 

2 For an excellent statement of the difficulties of treating the ques- 
tion of Indian agriculture, and some general remarks on Indian lane 
tenure, see bureau of Amer. Ethnology Report, 1885-86, p. 40 ff — Ed. 



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